This invention relates to a rotary electrical machine, such as a brushless DC motor, flywheel magneto or generator and more particularly to an improved arrangement for communicating electrical power with the windings of the armature coils of the stator of such machines.
As is well known, many types of rotary electrical machines employ a stator that has a number of circumferentially-spaced coils that are disposed outwardly of and around the rotational axis of the machine rotor. These coils are generally wound around poles that are formed in some suitable manner and which are affixed to the outer housing of the machine. The windings for each armature have terminal ends that obviously must be connected to the terminals of the machine to either receive or transmit electrical power. Generally, the terminal ends at the opposite ends of each winding are connected by soldering to the external conductors. These connections may be either all at one side of the armature or at opposite sides of the armature.
Because of the advent of high quality, permanent magnets utilizing rare earth materials, it is possible to provide electric motors that are quite small in size and which can be powered by portable power supplies, such as batteries. These types of devices offer the utilization of electric motors for powering a number of devices that have been normally driven in other manners.
For example, in vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, many accessories are powered by direct drive from the engine. This provides problems in connection with complex pulley drives, etc.
The use of these high efficiency electrical motors can be enjoyed in such an application to limit the number of accessories that are directly driven by the engine. However, when this type of device is utilized, the voltages available for power are relatively low, thus necessitating high current flows to provide the requisite electrical power output. The same situation arises if the machine functions as a generator as opposed to functioning as a motor.
In order to permit these high current flows, the windings of the armature coils must use wires having fairly large diameters or stranded wires that together provide a large effective diameter. This tends to increase the size of the electric machine, particularly in the axial direction and presents significant problems in connections with the electrical connection between the external power connection and the terminal ends of these armature coils. Also, because the wire diameter is large, the wire is difficult to manipulate at the terminal ends and difficult to connect to the external conductors.
It is, therefore, a principal object of this invention to provide an improved electrical connection for the armatures of a rotating electric machine.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved and simplified electrical connection arrangement between the individual windings of the armature of a rotating electric device and an external power supply or output.